Commemorative plate featuring Reverend C. H. Spurgeon: 19th century

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Commemorative plate featuring Reverend C. H. Spurgeon, the Metropolitain Tabernacle and Stockwell Orphanage. The plate is octagonal in shape. In the centre is a black and white portrait of a bearded man, underneath this in written 'An Eloquent Man and Mighty in the Scriptures'. Reverend Spurgeon (1834–92) was one of the first evangelical preachers to be heard in London. Born in Essex, he began preaching in London in 1853, so successfully that he hired music halls to accommodate his audiences. In 1859 he began to build the Metropolitan Tabernacle at Elephant & Castle, an imposing building in Greek style which held 6000 people. He was said to have called it a tabernacle rather than a church, because Londoners were still in the wilderness.